Somewhere along the way, we got the idea that we are supposed to think in perfectly neat single-file lines. We don't. We think in millions of idea bubbles. Sometimes, all those thought bubbles overwhelm us and we just have to let them pop. Don't hold it in. Speak. Be heard. You have a voice, too.

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Monday, February 2, 2015

Warrior Marks

“I have a lot of scars, man. My mother said that
a man is not a man unless he has a scar on his face. And what she meant by a
scar was some kind of battle that you had to go through, whether it was
psychological or physical. To her, a scar was actually beautiful and not
something that marred you.” – Nick Nolte

Scars.

That is an ugly word. We think of un-pretty marks,
disfiguring marks, marks that carve us out of the rest of the world and brand
us as different. Someone gets hurt, goes to the ER for stitches, and asks,
“Will it leave a scar?” As if that is
the worst part of it all.

Sure, no one likes to see that mark. It’s a visual reminder
of a very bad day: a car accident, an earthquake, a fight with a spouse, a
drunken table dance, a poorly handled gun, etc. Wounds heal, but the scars remind
us that they were there in the first place. They are tiny (or sometimes
not-so-tiny) visual traumas that occur every time we see them. Some people
cling to them, running their fingers across their scars over and over,
rhythmically, as if touching the scars connects them to the event physically.
Others simply stare at their scars and walk through time.

The physical scars we bear are only a part of our fight. Our
other trauma is mental. We suffer, we bleed, we weep, but maybe – if we’re
lucky – there isn’t a fleshy scar left behind to physically obsess over. What
do we do? The trauma is still there. We’re still scarred. The problem is that
no one else can see it. No one can physically see where our pain began. When
the mentally scarred look in a mirror, what do we have to focus on?

People seem to understand when those physically injured fall
apart. They see the burned face, the broken leg, the loss of hair, or the
self-harm lines, but what about those mentally injured? Those barely holding
themselves together with mental tape and a fake smile? Those whose response to
“How’s everything going?” is always “Fine, thanks.” That’s a stock answer, and
if you actually care how someone is doing, you won’t accept it. The mentally
injured have ropes and ropes of scar tissue. It can’t be seen, and it needs a
little more work to understand it. We may linger over our own mental damage too
long, mentally rubbing it in an attempt to break it down and make it go away,
but we’re just scar siblings to our physically wounded counterparts.

When it comes to scars, there are two ways to look at them.
One, you are a victim of life’s events and disasters and have been marked by them.
You can hide them in shame and worry that everyone will see them. Or two, you
are a survivor who has participated in your own life. Display whatever warrior
marks you have, and do so proudly. If anyone wants to turn away, let them turn.
Scars mean you had something to fight for, you fought, and you didn’t give up.

I am a survivor. I am proud to have survived every fight in
my life. These are my marks: my warrior marks. And I am proud.